Cross Generation Console Wars: PSP vs Dreamcast, Part 2

November 2, 2013

Not long ago I had these two homebrew titans and overall excellent machines face each other in our fictional cross generation console wars, but the results came out inconclusive as both systems came out with the same score. In this chapter, I will revisit on of the areas where both consoles tied and will compare them in other areas I consider to be fair in this case.

DISCLAIMER
I do NOT base the winner of these articles on my personal opinion, I choose categories that I consider to be fair when comparing both systems and make a decision of the winner of a category based on the facts I have at hand, and then count the votes. The end result does not necessarily mirrors my personal opinion and the facts compared in these articles are all true, but that doesn’t mean they are complete, I may have overlooked an important one, which I try to avoid by doing proper research. I accept constructive criticisms, just don’t hate for the sake of hating.

GAMES
I have already shown you the best selling games of each system and they both ended up tying up, but in case you missed it, here they are:

This time around, I know I’m gonna be greatly criticized but I will give this vote to the Dreamcast. I know most of you haven’t played most Dreamcast games, if any, and you may consider PSP titles to be either on par or better, but know that without some Dreamcast games, you probably wouldn’t have your favorite franchise today. Yes, Dreamcast games were that innovative, and although newer games do everything bigger and better, the Dreamcast is the giant shoulders most modern games stand on.

Winner: the Dreamcast

PRICECause its all about the benjamins.

Price is almost always a definite factor in any console wars, the highest priced consoles are usually the ones that sell worst: Neo Geo, Atari Jaguar, Sega Saturn, Bandai Pippin, and most recently the PS3. This far wasn’t true for the Dreamcast, which retailed at around $200, pretty common for consoles of that era. You can still pick one up for somewhere between $30 and $60, depending on the games and accessories that come with it.

The PSP had a similar price, retailing for $200, although more expensive than most portable devices, including its competitor, the DS, taking into consideration the big leap that the PSP was at its time, we can consider it a pretty solid deal. Nowadays you can buy a new one for somewhere between $100 and $150, or a used one for somewhere between $40 and $60.

Winner: tied.Overall both consoles offered a good deal for their price, and although the PSP was a bit more expensive than most portable devices, its power and capabilities made it completely worth it.

INFLUENCE

When talking about influential consoles, the first thing that comes to mind is probably the NES and PS2, maybe in some obscure cases the Atari 2600. But we can’t forget that it was the Dreamcast one of the most important aspects of home consoles today: Online Gaming. While modern consoles do this bigger and better, up until the Dreamcast came Online gaming was either nonexistent, or really, really limited. Other companies such as Sony and Nintendo had to go ahead and implement their own Online features that weren’t originally planned, normally through the use of addons that you would have to buy and connect to the system. When it comes to gaming, Shemnue not only was first in making a 3D real life simulator, it also did it pretty well, with gamers considering a jewel and a must play even today. Other new and interesting games popped up like Seaman, which consisted of petting a fish with a man’s face, yeah sounds odd, but the game ain’t far from good. Sports and futuristic shooters was also big on the Dreamcast, and later kept being big on newer systems.

The PSP was also highly influential as being a big entertaining portable device, mixing games with great multimedia capabilities. While this didn’t go unseen, it didn’t have a big impact on the gaming community with the rise of smartphones, and the PSP being overshadowed by the DS. Not much is to be said about this. The impact on portable devices was big, but it wasn’t big enough for portable gaming devices.

Winner: The Dreamcast.Next time you connect to PSN or Xbox Live, remember that it’s thanks to the Dreamcast

VOX POPULI
I really didn’t want to make a poll about this one, cause it’s obvious that the PSP will win taking into consideration that this IS a PSP mostly page. Still the Dreamcast got some positive feedback, with some users choosing the PSP only by a small margin. Here are some interesting comments.

Why must you do this Acid? Two of my favourite consoles of all time… :sigh:

My vote: PSP.

Next, do the Commodore 64 vs XBOX (original).

– Casavult
Oh and by the way, I’m not gonna do Commodore 64 vs Xbox. The Xbox already competed against the Wii, and the Commodore could hardly be considered a console.

It’s hard to decide between the Dreamcast and the PSP. Two of my favorite games come from the Dreamcast, and have been ported to multiple systems…
But ultimately, I have to go with the PSP, only due to me having (And still having) memories with it.
(I’ve went through about 2 PSPs. A Daxter Ice Silver one, a reg. black one, and now I’m using my Invisimals Blue edition.)
I’ve been playing the PSP for many a year.
Hell, I’ve had PSP before I had a computer, and Xbox 360.

– XxGodOfWar2xX

I would have picked dreamcast except installing the SD adapter is a pain and not all models of dreamcast allow for backup play from 700MB CDs.

– b2p1mp
I generally disagree with him, just because not all models can be hacked doesn’t mean it stops being a good system.

Our super maiderator gave me two ideas for upcoming articles:

VMU vs PocketStation
It must happen

Game Gear vs Virtual Boy

– jc_gargma

I like the GameGear vs Virtual Boy one, but I’m not too sure about the VMU vs Pocketstation one, they are from different generations, and they basically held the same purpose, but can we even consider them consoles? I’m not too sure about that.

Winner: the PSPWith 17 out of 17 votes, the PSP clearly stands as the favorite console of this page.

CONCLUSION
Counting all the votes for all the systems, the Dreamcast comes as the winner by one vote, which defies my previous expectations that the PSP would win by a large margin. There is no doubt in my mind that both consoles are equally awesome, and it’s clear that whoever the winner might have been, it would will be by a small margin.
This said, don’t get offended if the PSP lost, consider both consoles to be tied.
As these are two of the most homebrew-enabled consoles, here are links for great and huge homebrew collections for the PSP and the Dreamcast: